


a terrible price

by Zoanzon



Series: Fragments of Larger Worlds [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Soul Stone (Marvel), and make it hurt even worse, but what they /do/ have comes off as...cruel and malicious, the infinity stones don't have human morality, what if I take something canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:02:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoanzon/pseuds/Zoanzon
Summary: How do you make a test cruel?(Or: The Mind Stone twists perceptions and personalities to drive people against one another. The Power Stone burns people out, like a child with a magnifying glass. The Soul Stone…it makes its own entertainment.)





	a terrible price

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another of my 'sat down and wrote this out in one go' pieces. This is something that I've been thinking on for a bit, and was conceived after a discussion with friends about the deaths that went into claiming the Soul Stone, as well as how the Stones might've been playing a cruel trick.
> 
> Also, a list of those the Soul Stone refers to is at the bottom, if the epithets don't make sense.

How do you make a test cruel?

– – –

The Mind Stone played the longer, subtler game. It worked its way into the minds of those it encountered, playing with their perceptions, what they liked and what they disliked. It turned people against one another, and drove people together.

The Power Stone played its game in a more crude fashion. It merely flooded its power into those who tried to touch it, like a Terran child armed with a magnifying glass, concentrating the sun’s energies onto an ant. The Power Stone pushed its energies into the mortals who tried to wield it until they popped, and delighted in the destruction that was wrought.

The Space Stone was just as crude: it let the mortals mess with it, to gain whatever benefits they could, but would transport those who earned its ire - or faced its energies - across the universe, stranding them so far from their home they would likely never be able to return, and safe enough to be aware of that face. 

The Soul Stone…it hid its game in a test; simple enough to unravel if it was thought about properly, but hidden in a way where it would never be discovered.

– – –

How do you make a test cruel?

_(You do it for your pleasure, rather than a real need to have a test be performed.)_

– – –

The Soul Stone had only encountered four people in recent eons, and all played into its games delightfully.

The first, a Terran named Johann Schmidt, was banished to the Soul Stone’s ‘prison’ - a delightful trick by a race which the Stone once beguiled; they died sealing it, but they did much better than it expected of them - by the Space Stone. The Space Stone was rather crude with its punishments: it merely banished people it did not care for across the universe, leaving them stranded in situations they would not be happy with. Whether the stranding of Johann Schmidt outside the Soul Stone’s prison was coincidence, or a taunt by the Space Stone, the Soul Stone knew not; it merely took advantage of the situation. The Terran, who tried to access the Soul Stone’s prison, cracked the prison just enough to let the Soul Stone’s influence leak free, and the Soul Stone rewarded the Terran by subsuming him, relinquishing the Terran’s soul to the Soulscape to live eternally while puppeting the leftover body to serve as a face for those who later came to interact with those who came to seek the Soul Stone.

The second, years and blinks of the eye later, was the son of A'lars, the Titan who sought to re-unite the Stones. (The Soul Stone could sense the Mind Stone’s influence on the son of A'lars, the way the Titan’s mind was twisted and reshaped; a delightful showing by the brethren Stone.) With him was one of the son’s own children, those he had claimed for himself and reshaped to carry out his Quest. Once the Soul Stone’s puppet-body gave the son of A'lars the criteria to free the Stone, he watched as the son of A'lars did as requested, and saw the pain it dealt him.

If it could have, the Stone would have laughed. A murderer, driven by his quest, twisted further by the Mind Stone: his ‘love’ was that of affection for one who had once served as requested, who one fit the mold the son of A'lars had shaped. That the son of A'lars saw his actions has a cruel fate, but one that was needed for his quest, made the Stone quiver in delight.

– – –

How do you make a test cruel?

_(You make it hurt, as much as you can.)_

– – –

The last two people that the Soul Stone met were earlier, and later in its history. The temporally-displaced wanderers - the Soul Stone was not sure why the Time Stone had not shredded the wanderers, but it had not - who had come to claim the Stone before the son of A'lars did so. The Mind Stone could see the affection, the deep-rooted love, the daughter of Ivan and the son of Edith held for one another, and decided that it would perform a repeat: technically, with their wandering, the daughter of Ivan and the son of Edith had made it so the son of A’Lars’ test had not occurred yet: therefore, they could take the same test if they wanted to claim the Stone.

And oh, how they performed for the Soul Stone even better than the son of A’Lars’ defensive claims of love. The Stone watched as both the daughter of Ivan and the son of Edith, instead of trying to kill the other to claim the stone, to sacrifice what they loved, instead tried to sacrifice themselves to the Stone so the other may claim it, both loving the other too much to see them die.

_(The Stone wondered: did the ‘love’ the Terrans felt for one another make them blind to the fact that such a bond would make their death, and the other’s survival, hurt the other worse? The daughter of Ivan couldn’t bear to see the son of Edith die, but did she realize what her sacrifice itself would do to the son of Edith?_

_Probably not: such blindspots were what made the test so fun.)_

Seeing both nearly kill themselves, at the same time, made the Soul Stone glow in its prison from the delight, and the death of the daughter of Ivan made the Stone decide that, despite its original intent to stay sealed despite the death - leave the survivor empty-handed, to suffer, while waiting for the son of A’Lars - that it would follow this Terran.

It wanted to see the man’s despair.

– – –

How do you make a test cruel?

_(You make it sharp enough to bleed, and you bury it where the armor is weakest.)_

– – –

And in both timelines, the Soul Stone laughed as it watched what happened. The son of A’Lars ‘balanced the scales’ and wiped half the universe from existence. The son of Rebecca restored those that the son of A’Lars had taken away. And the son of Maria wiped away the son of A’Lars, and all which stood with him.

Yet, only the son of Rebecca tried to reclaim the daughter of Ivan, whose sacrifice had occurred to set free the Soul Stone. The Soul Stone gained a drop of respect for the son of Rebecca, for being clever. It still made him hurt, to take and wield all the Stones has he had, but there was still respect.

Of course the Soul Stone did not return the daughter of Ivan, but there was still respect.

So close, yet so far.

– – –

How do you make a test cruel?

You make it fit a person’s blindspots. You take something from them, you make them do something that they will not do unless they’re so committed that they have tunnel vision. You take what they love most, and you frame it as a proper trade, and then you give them ultimate power.

And then you laugh, because those who have the commitment to do such a sacrifice never have the flexibility of mind to see if their newly-gained ultimate power can let them regain what they had sacrificed.

If the son of A’Lars had tried to regain his daughter with all the Stones, the Soul Stone would have given her up willingly. If the son of Edith had attempted to wield the Stones, and had tried to reclaim the daughter of Ivan, the Soul Stone would have given her up willingly. Yet, the son of A’Lars had not tried, and the son of Edith had not tried: only the son of Rebecca sought to see if ultimate power could undo the Soul Stone’s test, and he was not the one who had been involved in the test, so he was not allowed to succeed.

– – –

How do you make a test cruel?

You give them the possibility to regain what they had lost, knowing they will never think to try.

**Author's Note:**

> >   
> _Thanos: Where is the Soul Stone?_  
>  Stonekeeper: You should know: It extracts **a terrible price**.  
> Thanos: I am prepared.  
> Stonekeeper: We all think that at first. We are all wrong.  
> \- Avengers: Infinity War  
> 
> 
> Also, if it wasn't obvious:
> 
>  
> 
> * Son of A'Lars: Thanos
> 
> * Daughter of Ivan: Natasha
> 
> * Son of Edith: Clint
> 
> * Son of Rebecca: Bruce
> 
> All but Bruce's were canon: following the standard set of character being addressed as child of the opposite-gender'd parent, I noted Bruce as the son of Rebecca Banner.


End file.
